Cooking Feasts

Many Pagan activities include snacks or a complete feast, and the Greenhaven Tradition supports this custom. This is particularly true for esbats and sabbats. Esbats here at Fieldhaven covenstead often involve supper. A fair number of our sabbats feature a potluck feast.

How to Host a Potluck Feast

Potluck feasts are a widespread Pagan tradition. If you want to wind up with a good spread, and not six different versions of apple salad or the like, it helps to plan ahead. This article offers helpful tips for hosting a successful potluck.

Sabbat Recipes

Here you'll find a selection of recipes from Fieldhaven. They cover a wide range of food types. There are appetizers and snacks, main dishes, side dishes, and desserts.

For background information and ritual texts, see the "Sabbats" section with subpages for each of the eight holy days. You may want to switch back and forth between pages to coordinate your theme and menu.

Most of the time we cook for omnivores. Some of the folks in the local Pagan community are obligate vegetarians or obligate meat-eaters, and there are other dietary needs to consider. Individual recipes may therefore be styled for carnivores, omnivores, or occasionally vegetarians or vegans. Please read the ingredients carefully with your personal needs and tastes in mind.

A majority of these recipes lean towards cooking from scratch with singular ingredients rather than using mixes or prepared foods. Some of the recipes are easy to make and suitable for everyday or holiday use. Others are feast food in the sense of something that's complicated to make but yields spectacular results, so is worth making for a special occasion. You can usually tell the difference by looking in the preparation instructions and/or notes. Where there are fancy ingredients, the notes often suggest simpler substitutions in case you don't have the fancy stuff.

Recipes listed for a given sabbat may be connected to it in various ways. So for instance, there's the seasonal availability of ingredients (hence the fresh herb recipes at Litha), thematic aspects (hence the egg recipes at Ostara), or other means. Feel free to mix and match -- there's nothing wrong with serving a recipe listed under Beltane at Lammas, or whatever.

You'll notice a lot of slow cooker recipes and ice cream recipes in particular. Slow cooking is great because it's easy to make large amounts for a feast, and because it perfumes the house with the smell of home cooking that makes people feel good. For spectacular ice cream as a kitchen craft, good equipment is a must. Fieldhaven has a Cuisinart ice cream maker, which performs considerably better than most other models.

When possible, we support local farms that raise their plants and animals with care and without unnecessary chemicals. Among our sources are Common Ground Food Co-op, Dutch Valley Meats, and Urbana's Market at the Square. Fieldhaven does not currently have a vegetable garden, but we do have several herb gardens, a small orchard, and assorted other edibles scattered around the yard. Many of the recipes you'll see on this site include at least some locally produced ingredients.

Remember, you are what you eat, so choose mindfully. When you cook for a sabbat or esbat, you're also cooking for the gods. Give to them of your best, and you will receive likewise.